Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Dylan
Warm.
I’m warm.
The thought drifts through my consciousness. For what feels like the first time in forever, I’m not freezing. Not shivering. Not lanced through with a cold that was leeching the life out of my soul.
Instead, I’m warm and comfortable and wrapped in something soft that smells like cedar and sandalwood. A big bed. A really big bed with sheets that feel expensive against my bare skin.
Bare skin?
My brain is sluggish, still swimming up from the depths of wherever it retreated to. But certain facts are starting to register. I’m naked. I’m in a luxurious bed. And there’s something pressed against my back.
Someone.
A broad, muscular chest radiating heat like a furnace. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, holding me close. Legs tangled with mine, keeping me anchored in place.
I’m being spooned. I’m the little spoon. The very little spoon, given the size difference between my body and the one curved around it.
Sweet Jesus.
Did Teagan and Sean finally convince me to go clubbing with them? They’ve been trying for months, insisting I need to get out more, meet people, stop being such a hermit. Did I actually give in? Did I get drunk and pull someone? Is that what this is?
A smile tugs at my lips. Good for me. It’s been far too long since I’ve woken up in someone’s arms. Far too long since I’ve felt this safe and warm and held.
The arms around me tighten slightly, pulling me closer, and I feel a contented sigh against the back of my neck. This is nice. This is really nice. Maybe I should go clubbing more often if this is the result.
And then reality comes crashing back.
The memories hit me like a freight train.
The concrete walls. The chair. The camera with its blinking red light.
The man tied up across from me, screaming and begging and calling me Declan.
The sounds. Oh God, the sounds. Pleading that turned to screaming that turned to wet, terrible noises that I will never, ever be able to unhear.
The blood. So much blood. And then the cold.
The freezing shower and the cold of my wet clothes that went on and on until I couldn’t feel my own body anymore. Until I couldn’t feel anything at all.
The monster who did all of that now has me naked in his bed.
I flail. Thrash. Try to scramble away from the body pressed against mine. But the arms around me just tighten, holding me in place with terrifying ease.
“Stay still.” A deep voice growls in my ear.
Something inside me shatters.
“Please don’t,” I sob, the words tearing out of my throat. “Please. Please, I’ll do anything. Please don’t do this. Please don’t... please...”
I’m crying now. Ugly, hysterical tears that I can’t control. My whole body is shaking with the force of my sobs, and I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything except beg.
The arms around me vanish. The warmth against my back disappears as the mattress shifts violently. I hear rapid footsteps.
I scramble upright, grabbing the blankets and pulling them up to my chin as if they can somehow protect me. As if anything can protect me from this man.
When I manage to blink the tears from my eyes enough to see, he is standing on the other side of the room. He’s backed away from the bed like I’m the dangerous one. Like I’m the threat.
He’s wearing boxers. Just boxers. His chest is bare, all hard muscle and olive skin, and under any other circumstances I might appreciate the view. But right now all I can see is the man who made another human being scream for hours before finally, mercifully, making the screaming stop.
His cheeks are flushed. He looks... flustered. Uncomfortable. Almost embarrassed.
“I wasn’t going to...” He stops, swallows hard. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “I’m not a...”
He trails off, running a hand through his dark hair in obvious agitation. His jaw works silently for a moment before he finally forces the words out.
“I’m many things,” he says, his voice rough and strained. “But I’m not that.”
I stare at him, clutching the blankets like a lifeline. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears, and the tears are still streaming down my face, but I’ve stopped making sounds. I don’t trust my voice. I don’t trust anything about this situation.
“You had hypothermia.” His voice is quieter now. Gentler. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Severe hypothermia. You were dying. I was warming you up. That’s all I was doing.”
He takes a breath, squares his shoulders, and meets my eyes with what looks like considerable effort.
“You have my word on that, Dylan.”
The sincerity in his voice makes something twist in my chest. But I can’t trust it.
Can’t trust him. This is the man who locked me in a pitch-black room and left me there for hours.
The man who put me under a freezing shower and left me there to die of the cold.
The man who made me watch while he... I can still hear the screaming.
I think I will always hear the screaming.
For the rest of my days, however many or few those might be, I will hear that man begging for mercy that never came.
I can’t trust the monster who did that. No matter how gentle his voice is now. No matter how sincere he seems.
But then a thought cuts through the fog of terror and trauma.
“Wait.” My voice comes out as a croak, barely recognizable as my own. I swipe at my wet cheeks with the back of one trembling hand. “Did you just call me Dylan?”
He nods slowly, his dark eyes never leaving my face.
Hope flickers in my chest. Dangerous, fragile hope that I’m terrified to feel.
“Does this mean...” I have to pause and wet my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. “Do you believe me?”
Another nod.
“Your brother left me a video message,” he says quietly, and something dark passes across his features as he says it. A tightening around his eyes, a tension in his jaw.
Declan. Declan contacted him. Declan knows that this man has me. The hope in my chest grows brighter, warmer. Declan and I have never been close, but we’re still family. We’re still twins. Surely that has to count for something. Surely he wouldn’t leave me here to rot in some monster’s lair.
“Is Declan coming to get me?” The question comes out small and childlike. Pathetic, really. But I can’t help it. My fingers twist in the blankets, knuckles going white with the force of my grip.
He shakes his head, and the movement seems almost reluctant. Like he wishes he had a different answer to give.
The hope dies as quickly as it was born.
Of course Declan isn’t coming. Of course he isn’t.
When has Declan ever done anything for anyone but himself?
When has he ever cared about anyone else’s wellbeing?
He knows I’m here. He knows what is happening to me.
And he decided that the only effort I was worth was a video call.
I swallow hard, forcing down the fresh wave of tears that threatens to overwhelm me. My throat aches with the effort of holding them back.
“Did he...” I have to stop and swallow again, my voice threatening to break. “Did he say anything? About me?” There is no need to clarify who I’m pathetically asking about.
His jaw tightens visibly. Something dark flashes in his eyes, and his hands curl into fists at his sides before he consciously relaxes them. “Nothing worth repeating.”
That tells me everything I need to know. Declan’s idea of helping me didn’t just end with a video call. He said something cruel. Something that made even this monster angry on my behalf.
“Are you going to let me go?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
He shakes his head again, and this time he looks away. His gaze drops to the floor, then shifts to the wall, anywhere but at me.
“I’ve seen too much,” I say flatly, surprised by how steady my voice sounds when everything inside me is crumbling. “I know too much.”
Something shifts in his expression as his eyes snap back to mine. Surprise, maybe. That I understand the rules of this world he lives in.
But I’m not as na?ve as all that. I walked away from the world of organized crime when I was sixteen, but I was still born into it. I know how it works. I know I’ve seen too much. Know too much. Men like Dante don’t leave loose ends.
“Yes,” he says after a moment, his voice low.
“So what happens now? You keep me here until... until what?”
“I don’t know.” The admission seems to cost him something. He rubs the back of his neck, a gesture that seems almost boyish on such a dangerous man. “I’m figuring it out.”
“Figuring out how to kill me?” The words taste bitter on my tongue.
“No.” The word comes out sharp. Fierce. He takes half a step toward me, then seems to think better of it and stops himself. “I’m not going to kill you.”
I laugh. It’s an ugly sound, cracked and broken, and it scrapes against my raw throat. “Why not? You’ve done everything else.”
He flinches. Actually flinches, like my words are physical blows. His eyes squeeze shut for just a moment, and when they open again, there’s something raw and wounded in them.
“I know,” he says quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know what I’ve done.”
“Do you? Do you really?” The words are pouring out now, propelled by something darker than fear.
I sit up straighter against the headboard, the blankets clutched to my chest like armor.
“Because I don’t think you do. I don’t think you have any idea what it’s like to be locked in the dark for hours, wondering if you’re going to die there.
You have no idea what it’s like to feel every last sliver of warmth leave your body.
I don’t think you know what it’s like to watch someone be.
.. to watch what you did... while they scream your brother’s name and beg you to save them. ”
My voice breaks on the last word, and I have to press my hand over my mouth to hold back the sob that wants to escape.
“I couldn’t save him,” I whisper through my fingers. “He thought I was Declan and I couldn’t save him and now all I can hear is him screaming.” I suck in a shuddering breath. “It’s all I’m going to hear for the rest of my days.”
My torturer says nothing. Just stands there, frozen, with an expression I can’t read. His hands hang loose at his sides, and there’s a tension in his shoulders that makes him look almost as trapped as I feel.
“His name was Vinnie,” I continue, lowering my hand from my mouth. I don’t know why I’m still talking. The words just keep coming, like a dam has broken somewhere inside me. “He had children. He told you that. He begged you, for his children, and you just...”
I can’t finish. The memory rises up, vivid and terrible, and I have to close my eyes against it.
“I know,” he says again. His voice is rough. Wrong. Like it’s been scraped over gravel.
“You know.” I open my eyes and stare at him, something hot and bitter rising in my chest. “That’s all you can say? You know?”
“What do you want me to say?” There’s something raw in his voice now, something that sounds almost like pain.
He spreads his hands in a gesture of helplessness that looks foreign on him.
“That I’m sorry I made you watch that? That I wish I could take it back?
Words don’t mean anything. Words can’t fix what I’ve done. ”
“Nothing can fix what you’ve done.” I hold his gaze, refusing to look away even though everything in me wants to hide.
“I know that too.” His voice is barely audible now, and he’s the one who looks away first. His eyes drop to the floor, and for a long moment neither of us speaks. The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
Suddenly he moves, and my body reacts before my mind can catch up. I flinch so violently that my head cracks against the headboard, a burst of pain blooming across my skull.
He freezes instantly, his hand hovering in mid-air. His eyes find mine, and he watches me with dark, too-knowing eyes. Like he can hear just how fast my heart is beating. Like he can see exactly how broken I am.
My gaze flicks down to the floor, to where he was reaching for, and I see his clothes crumpled in a pile.
Shame burns through me. He was reaching for his clothes and I reacted as if he was doing something terrible.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says softly, straightening up slowly, leaving his clothes where they are. “I know you don’t believe that. I know I haven’t given you any reason to believe that. But I’m not going to hurt you anymore.”
I don’t respond. Can’t respond. My throat has closed up completely, and I can feel myself trembling, fine vibrations running through my whole body that I can’t seem to stop.
He gestures carefully toward a door I hadn’t noticed before, keeping his movements slow and deliberate. “There’s a bathroom through there. Clean towels, soap, everything you need. I’ll find you some clothes.”
I still don’t respond. My fingers are aching from how tightly I’m gripping the blankets, but I can’t seem to make myself let go.
“I’ll make you something to eat,” he says, his voice gentle in a way that feels wrong coming from him. “You need to eat. You haven’t had anything in days.”
Days. I’ve been here for days. The thought makes my head spin, and I have to close my eyes against the sudden wave of dizziness.
When I open them again, he has gathered his clothes. He cradles them against his chest and takes a step toward the door, then pauses. He turns back to look at me, and there’s something in his eyes that I can’t identify. Something that looks almost like regret.
“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I am sorry. I know that doesn’t help. I know it doesn’t change anything. But I am.”
He waits, as if he’s expecting me to respond. To accept his apology or reject it or scream at him or something. But I have nothing left. No anger. No fear. No hope. Just a vast, echoing emptiness where all those things used to be.
When it becomes clear I’m not going to speak, he nods once. A small, defeated gesture. His shoulders slump slightly as he turns away.
“I’ll be back with food,” he says.
And then he’s gone, closing the door behind him with a quiet click.
I stare at the door for a long moment, listening to his footsteps fade away. The silence that follows is deafening.
And then I burst into tears.